1832.] CLEVER MIxMICS. 209 



They are excellent mimics : as often as we coughed or 

 yawned, or made any odd motion, they immediately imitated 

 us. Some of our party began to squint and look awry ; but 

 one of the young Fuegians (whose whole face was painted 

 black, excepting a white band across his eyes) succeeded in 

 making far more hideous grimaces. They could repeat 

 with perfect correctness each word in any sentence we 

 addressed them, and they remembered such words for 

 some time. Yet we Europeans all know how difficult it 

 is to distinguish apart the sounds in a foreign language. 

 Which of us, for instance, could follow an American Indian 

 through a sentence of more than three words ? All savages 

 appear to possess, to an uncommon degree, this power of 

 mimicry. I was told, almost in the same words, of the 

 same ludicrous habit among the Cafifres : the Australians, 

 likewise, have long been notorious for being able to imitate 

 and describe the gait of any man, so that he may be recog- 

 nised. How can this faculty be explained? Is it a con- 

 sequence of the more practised habits of perception and 

 keener senses, common to all men in a savage state, as 

 compared with those long civilized ? 



When a song was struck up by our party, I thought the 

 Fuegians would have fallen down with astonishment. With 

 equal surprise they viewed our dancing ; but one of the 

 young men, when asked, had no objection to a little waltz- 

 ing. Little accustomed to Europeans as they appeared to 

 be, yet they knew and dreaded our firearms ; nothing would 

 tempt them to take a gun in their hands. They begged for 

 knives, calling them by the Spanish word " cuchilla." They 

 explained also what they wanted, by acting as if they had a 

 piece of blubber in their mouth, and then pretending to cut 

 instead of tear it. 



I have not as yet noticed the Fuegians whom we had on 

 board. During the former voyage of the Adventure and 

 Beagle in 1826 to 1830, Captain Fitz Roy seized on a party 

 of natives, as hostages for the loss of a boat, which had 

 been stolen, to the great jeopardy of a party employed on 

 the survey ; and some of these natives, as well as a child 

 whom he bought for a pearl-button, he took with him 

 to England, determining to educate them and instruct 

 them in religion at his own expense. To settle these 

 natives in their own country was one chief inducement 



. Captain Fitz Roy to undertake our present voyage ; 



;id before the Admiralty had resolved to send out this 



